1: Your school is filled with professional, dedicated colleagues. Ask them to share their knowledge.
Make use of the expertise and experience of staff at your school. They'll be pleased and flattered, and you'll gain access to a wealth of information. Why not visit other teachers’ classrooms, observe lessons and plan to team-teach parts of your program, or work with a buddy class and their teacher? Make sure that having formal and informal discussions with others teaching on your grade and with your supervisor is part of your regular teaching practice. By keeping in touch with your friends from university who are also just getting started, you'll be able to share ideas and support one another.
2: Ongoing professional learning is vitally important. Take responsibility for your own PL journey.
As often as you can, attend professional learning opportunities and discuss new information that you’ve heard with colleagues, when you’re back at school. Ask lots of questions and watch what others do. Discuss curriculum and syllabus learning outcomes and indicators with other teachers to ensure that you are correctly identifying each student’s level of development. Share the teaching strategies that you are using and compare their effectiveness. Professional conversations, learning opportunities and dialogue will consistently add new tools to your teaching toolbox.
3: Don't throw away the books and resources you used at university - they'll come in handy.
And don't forget about the notes and resources that your supervising teachers used during your school practicums! Now that you have a new context for all these publications, you'll see the information differently and may find it useful in new ways. Plus, you can also visit the teachers’ resource section in your school, consult the teacher librarian for more ideas, and then use the information that you find. Find out about resources that others find helpful by asking questions and by reading - your colleagues will likely be more than willing to help.
4: Join professional associations and become an active member.
Professional associations like PETAA offer professional learning opportunities at conferences and courses, as well as online resources, curriculum units and other articles and readings to support your classroom practice. Plus, you’ll meet, learn from, and connect with other, similarly enthused professionals who also enjoy learning more about teaching.
5: Don't just stop at conversations with colleagues when looking for insight into sudents. Open up dialogues with parents and carers.
Parents and carers have vast stores of information about their children, and taking the time to talk with them could prove invaluable. These conversations could happen informally before or after the school bell. Schools have formal reporting procedures as well that involve opportunities to chat with parents about their children. Make sure you ask questions at this time and not just talk to parents!
6: Don't forget to talk to the most important people in all this: your students.
Create opportunities for students to share information about themselves. Make sure you use small group times and individual conversations to find out about your students. Hold conversations about their lives, interests and concerns. Try to learn about their individual strengths and interests.
7: Remember: everyone wants you to succeed. We are all here waiting to celebrate your successes.
Your students and their families will benefit from your professionalism and growing confidence. When you try these ideas, you might be amazed at the level of satisfaction you begin to feel in your new role. And most importantly: it'll help you’ll enjoy teaching.